I've been brainstorming a concept for a new website and have thought about
licensing my JavaScript files under a free software license. I will already
be using free software licensed libraries like jQuery and Modernizer (both
MIT), but have been a little bit unsure on what license to use for code that
I create.
If I use a permissive license, then there's the concept of it not being
copyleft and the worry of a competing site taking my code and making it
non-free. If I go with a GPL, LGPL, or MPL license, the code will be copyleft
but since it is running on the site (like how Wordpress is GPL, but you don't
have to make the source for modified code available), then the copyleft code
is not truely copyleft due to the code running on a site instead of an actual
program.
So this is where the Affero GPLv3 could come in handy. The code could be
copyleft, I could offer the source code, and if someone wanted to use the
code on their site "as-is" or modified, they would have to make the source
available.
Due to the general nature of the GPL where all code linked with it must also
be free, does the usage of one AGPLv3 licensed JavaScript make ALL of the
additional JavaScript files served from that web page as AGPL? Honestly, it
wouldn't matter as the libraries I mentioned above are already free software
and can be easily linked with GPL code so it wouldn't matter if the AGPL
"converted" the other permissive code to AGPL as well.
So in a nutshell, does the inclusion of one AGPL licensed JavaScript file
convert the other JavaScript files included on the page to AGPL when
referenced on the same web page, or is that AGPL JavaScript isolated from the
others?
- [Trisquel-users] Question on using AGPLv3 for JavaScript fi... tegskywalker
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